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Put the ice queens, princesses, witches, monsters, pirates, Doctors, and whatever other costume the kids wore away.  Halloween is almost ove...

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Halloween Memories of Costumes

Happy Halloween! Yes, today is my favorite holiday, and while I have to work and live in an apartment where I can't hand out any treats because no one ever comes to apartments...I will enjoy the intensity that I have of years past.

There are a few things though that I keep thinking of. First, in the last twenty-odd years I've been alive, have I ever been worn out by Halloween? Yes. After my mother moved us half an hour away from the small town that her parents lived near, I was...tired. I can't say that as a fifth grader I was depressed (though sometimes I wonder if I could be considered as being depressed) but I remember I didn't have the spark to dress up that my friends and siblings had...In fact, as I think back, I don't think I ever really got excited before high school about dressing up as anything really. Being a princess and queen were easy costumes. I believe I have posted earlier about having siblings.

I think I tried to use Halloween to try to separate myself from the others. I used to justify my distancing of things I enjoyed and could have been a huge fanatic of by the fact that even in kindergarten I knew better than to ask about anything dealing with money. I learned quickly to just go with the flow of things and let numerous things slide. Whenever I look back, I realize that I ended up hurting myself. When the Power Rangers first came out, I loved Trini. She was the first female in a show that I wanted to know more about. Don't get me wrong. I loved Belle, but I wasn't always a fan of the story. I always felt something was missing (and my youngest two siblings playing it every time we put a movie it did not help. Watching it over and over I don't know how many times in one day...I still cringe a little when I think about watching Disney's version.) but could never place what it was.

Anyway, I remember that year as the first one I actively decided not to get dressed up for Halloween until a friend convinced me that I was dressed up as Curly Sue. Thus, it began. I started pulling off easy costumes. In fact, I pulled off Blair and Jo from Facts of Life one year. I wore a suit and hair down, at least until I got annoyed with my hair flowing around my face. Then I just pulled my hair off and had the jacket slung over my shoulder. But as I think back, yes I love Halloween. Some of the costumes I've worn? Not so much.

Let's see...I know I've been a princess. My mother had this rule, though. If you've been it before, you had to do something else. There've been a number of years I've done a witch, but they've mostly been after my mother stopped enforcing the same costume rule. I've been a Christmas tree, onion, one of the sleeping kids from the story about the littlest one shoving them out of the bed, a sorceress, a gypsy, an enchantress, Jasmine, and this year I'm doing Lydia Deetz from Beetlejuice. There's more that I just can't seem to place, but these are the ones that stick out in my mind as I think back on them. The gypsy costume was the last one I wore in South Carolina. It's also the only one I can remember from when we lived there.

If I had gotten to go as what I wanted I can guarantee I would have been more excited but when the costumes had to be made using what we could find at home, I didn't get excited by the dress up. Hope your dressing up as what you want this year, and planning to have an awesomely scary Halloween.

Have you had crazy costumes in the past? Leave a comment about them or some that you wish you could have pulled off. Like I wish I could have pulled of Trini, that was one I really wanted as a kid. I've also wanted to pull off Hermione(back when the Harry Potter books first came out) and Cimorene(from Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest books.) I've been a vampire before, too, though I couldn't stand the taste of fake blood.


Anyway have a happy, scary, safe, and treat-filled night tonight for Halloween! Oh, and don't forget about Daylight Savings tonight. Turn the clocks back one hour (this occurs officially at 2am, but most do this before going to bed, or after getting up, depending on if they have to work or be somewhere by a certain time the next day.)

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Writing and Road Trips

While watching a video about plot, the first speaker in the video managed to make me compare writing a story of any kind (be it short story, fanfiction, novel, or essay) to a road trip,which in the United States is almost synonymous to what historical novels would refer to as a “trip to the continent.” I must admit, I was in middle school when I first read this particular phrase and it took me until I was halfway through high school to actually figure out that when they referred to the continent and were European characters, they weren't talking about the U.S.

Writing as a road trip, however can be a sound idea, especially with NaNoWriMo 2015 beginning next Sunday morning. In fact each character in the piece of writing being worked on is either on the road trip with the writer or they are someone that you meet as you make the journey. The other thing is that the story for the reader is similar to a road trip as well. After all, unless you're trying to recreate something along the lines of Lord of the Flies, everyone knows it will have a happy ending. No, the journey is the important part, not the ending. As such, the same, in my opinion is true with every piece written.

Ideas and knowing what happens is easy. It's figuring out how that part of the story was reached or why the villain made that choice that can be interesting. Theories abound on why characters that are secondary, tertiary, and even “throw away” are speculated upon more than the main character, whose already had their story told. “Throw away” characters are those who are mentioned once or twice throughout a story in an abstract way that is meant to be considered negligible, such as the students upon a class list(students of Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, Durmstrang and Salem Witch's Academy are first in my mind.)

When working on your NaNoWriMo novel, maybe think about this: if you get stuck on your word count, delve into the life and viewpoint of one of these other characters. Tell the scene from the view of someone watching it instead of in the middle of it. Make a record of the emotions involved by everyone present. Just like on a road trip, if some little thing catches your attention, explore it. That's what writing is anyway. It's just an exploration of things that caught an author's attention and the characters are the people either on the journey or that were met on said journey.


Planning on working on a novel for NaNoWriMo 2015? What do you think you'll be working on?  Leave it in the comments.  Mine is likely to be a Leverage and Librarians crossover this time, though I may return to some of my original pieces!

Friday, October 23, 2015

Apologies

Terribly sorry about the huge wait on a blog post, but when Windows 10 manages to screw up my computer and nothing seems to help, there's not much one can do.  Now, I'm using my husband's computer, so while the posts might be even more sporadic and random, at least it's better than using my Kindle!

Now as to what I've been up to...well I made a quick blog post about the October Platform Challenge from Writer's Digest.  If you want to learn more it's located on there Editor Blogs: There Are No Rules blog.

It's October.  That means, you guessed it! Halloween.  You may not have realized it yet,  but Halloween is my favorite holiday.  This year there are some plans in the works, and some that are likely to be changed, but overall We have an 80's theme Halloween party on Halloween night and I'm getting costumed as Lydia Deetz from Beetlejuice.  I always did enjoy watching it.

What about you?  Will you be dressing as a beloved character from a favored entertainment piece?  Or a more generalized costume?  Perhaps something inanimate like a christmas tree, onion, or computer?  Leave a comment about your 2015 costume and Halloween plans!

Sunday, October 4, 2015

October 2015 Writer's Digest Platform

At the start of the month I received an email from Writer's Digest.  Said e-mail included a link to their There Are No Rules blog, which would contain daily challenges for writers.  For more information please check it out.  In fact day 3's challenge is to start a blog, or for those who already have one, make a post!

I really must apologize about my lack of posts.  I really have tried, but work 6 days a week and add in a few online classes referred to as MOOCs and it just slipped my mind, and yes the D&D campaign is still running, so I'll try to type up a post about the previous sessions before Halloween.  If I don't, I apologize preemptively and wish you all a very frightful and "happy" Halloween!